Opinion
Editorial

We must bring an end to the fatal distraction

Too many of us drive distracted. The consequences are deadly, as our attention leaves the road with every ping, buzz and ring.

Distracted driving is linked to hundreds of deaths in Canada every year. As Postmedia's Fatal Distraction series heartbreakingly illustrates, the devices we rely on are simultaneously putting us at risk as we text, tweet or check the GPS when our focus should be on driving. It is a national problem that demands a national response.

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau's suggestion that Canadians, for now, "turn everything off" when they drive is worthy advice; motorists have to take responsibility. As we learn more about how smartphone use affects the brain, it becomes clearer that texting while driving should merit the same societal scorn as driving drunk. But if changing behaviour was as simple as hitting send on a text, Canadians should already have received the message many times over.

Some drivers do get it, and stash their phones. Yet for all the "smart" technology Canadians carry, too many continue to make bad choices. The patchwork of demerits and fines in provincial traffic-safety provisions is failing to cut through the static. And that problem is coupled with a frustrating lack of national data measuring the real-time scale of the menace.

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard has called on Ottawa to make distracted driving a distinct Criminal Code offence. Right now, Quebec appears to stand alone. It's time Couillard had vocal company in this push.

Other provincial leaders make the case that "dangerous driving" -- an existing Criminal Code offence for all sorts of reckless behaviour -- gives judges an appropriate tool to sanction abhorrent driving. A conviction carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, and as much as 14 years if the dangerous driving causes death.

There are logistical, practical and perhaps even constitutional questions that would have to be overcome in creating a new Criminal Code measure. Courts are already under strain and broader buy-in would be essential from the provinces and police chiefs who would have to enforce any new law. But one of the reasons to create any measure in the Criminal Code is to denounce and deter behaviour that harms others. It is one of the biggest sticks we have to signal the seriousness of a problem.

Garneau, and the federal government, must lead a loud and clear charge to end distracted driving.